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I grabbed some more accurate completion data for the first 2 tiers of Cata. I might look at MoP later, but flipping through page after page to find how many guilds killed the first boss of a raid tier before the start of the next tier is crazy boring.

Obviously the completion percentages are lower than reality as wowprogress only tracks guilds and I'm sure there were a number of pug kills of early bosses in some of these raids.

Heh, funnily enough after you pointed out the issue with Wowprogress data collection last night I started updating all the data to ensure it properly matched with the date ranges I set out to track. In addition, I also realized that some of the Tiers (namely last expac) were split between West and Asia, so I had to go through both data sets to find the correct numbers and add them up. As you said, it was a total pain in the ass to click through the pages.

Anyway, the original post/data/charts have all been updated to reflect the proper date ranges and account for worldwide numbers on all fronts. I've also updated/edited the original post to reflect the changes.

The biggest difference is that the gap between Blackrock and other zones isn't going to end up being quite as severe (with it falling around the same completion as Terrace of Endless Spring).

"We expected these numbers with the transition to 20 man. I expect in 7.0 we'll see that people have adjusted and a return to our expected numbers."

Meanwhile, "let's make the first raid instance fairly easy so we can get more players into the raider base."

---

Originally Posted by Kytae

That is sadly true… There are 11 classes on WoW, which makes statistically almost impossible to keep at least 2 players of each class in the roster considering the reality of player migrations in and out of guilds.

And they really need to get into the idea of fights requiring Melee heavy comps.

There were approximately 1796 25-man guilds (1624 West and 172 Asia) doing Heroics at the start of the previous expansion. By comparison, there were approximately 18340 10-man guilds (16790 West and 1550 Asia) doing the same Heroics as well. Obviously these are very rough numbers and there will be overlapping players from both sides, but we're only focused on the averages and overall numbers not the fine details.]ever, I don't agree that Blizzard "delivered on their promises," since as discussed above and by others, there is virtually no reason that we need to be strictly stuck to a 20-man raid size in the content we've thus far experienced.

Hey Kull, approximately how many Mythic Guilds are there right now? While so many of them are failing, I'm curious to know how many are still going at it.

They shot themselves in the foot with their encounter design process. Instead of providing multiple viable avenues for success, the BRF encounters are designed in such a way that if you're not the type of person who enjoys challenging the status quo and discovering new methods to successfully complete the content, you're liable to give up because the encounter will be too difficult since you weren't x class or y spec or had z good player to carry you through it. What I'm saying is completely supposition, but I feel like it has to do with the extremely low completion rate of this current tier.

They could have designed more than one way to tackle a mechanic such as removing the damage resistance on the Slag Elementals on Mythic Blast Furnace, but they decided to say "eh having a priest mind control something is enough." You could have had a mage spellsteal a buff from a firecaller that would allow them to remove it. You could have a warrior (mass) spell reflect Burn back onto the elemental to shred its armour. You could have a Balance druid Typhoon it into the slag pool. There are so many engaging and creative options they could have used to make the encounters more interesting and make everyone feel like "hey I'm relevant, I bring some required utility to these fights." But instead they stopped short.

While Blizz has stated they want people to be able to play whatever they want, they would be foolish to state that every class has equal footing in this current raid tier. The mechanics for some of these fights flat out favour x spec or y class, so when people who don't play those classes and can't get into PuGs or the guild they want because their class isn't currently punching the first class ticket to the top of the meters or is able to flat out bypass mechanics and make fights easier, they find the game not fun because they can't do what they want to do. Enter the low completion rate for this tier and the huge subscriber loss.

In addition, I also realized that some of the Tiers (namely last expac) were split between West and Asia, so I had to go through both data sets to find the correct numbers and add them up. As you said, it was a total pain in the ass to click through the pages.

Did you account for the different release dates of the patches between the two regions?

Taken from the Q&A that happened this evening, we see yet another example of why we're in this situation to begin with: pure delusion on the part of (at least one of) the developers that make these decisions: http://www.twitch.tv/wow/v/6145982?t=23m53s

Below I've transcribed the question and answer that was linked above:

Originally Posted by @LunavaleLL

There has been a truly massive decline in raiding guilds. Do you still feel that changing the raiding paradigm was a good idea?

Originally Posted by Ion Hazzikostas

Yeah, I'm guessing this question probably eludes specifically to the fixed-size Mythic. I know that was a transition that was very challenging for many former 10-player Heroic guilds; many of them merged or recruited, others have struggled along the way.

I don't know that I would actually agree with the premise that there's a truly massive decline in raiding guilds. There are definitely a number of high profile guilds that have disbanded, but that's something that's happened every expansion, every raiding tier throughout the history of World of Warcraft. I remember when Death and Taxes faltered back in Sunwell, people were saying, 'Wow this is crazy. Death and Taxes is stopping raiding.'

Well, that's always going to be the case. There are always groups that come and go.

Ultimately, the glue that keeps guilds together tend to be a small handful of leaders and officers who invest a tremendous amount of their personal time and energy and as they move on in their lives -- as circumstances change -- it's very common to come to a point where you're just no longer willing to put that time in and that's how guilds break up.

[...]

Getting back to the core question, I do feel like changing raiding paradigm was a good idea. It's one of the things that, I think, we're overall satisfied with. I think there's nothing but wins all around, from the flexible structure. 10 to 30 player scaling for Normal and Heroic, having separate lockouts, having then cross-realmable from the start. We've seen tons more participation in those raid sizes.

I think on the other end of the spectrum, for the small percentage of players ultimately that do engage in Mythic raid content, they have gotten a better experience out of the fixed 20-player size. We're able to design encounters that are tuned for a specific raid size, rather than constantly struggling and often failing to balance 10 and 25 and getting them equal. And we're able to explore some different raid mechanics that we otherwise couldn't have. And in a competitive sense, it settles some of the, 'Well who's the real best guild?' or 'What's the real world first, 10 or 25?' there's just one condensed race, one solid lead for that competition to play out in.

There are a couple parts of this answer that are truly disturbing.

First and foremost, is the bullshit political phrasing of answers throughout, starting with this line: "I know that was a transition that was very challenging for many former 10-player Heroic guilds; many of them merged or recruited, others have struggled along the way." Emphasis is my own, but with zero acknowledgement (here or as we'll see later, elsewhere in his answer) that this change actually did destroy a huge number of guilds (fucking SIMPLE MATH tells us this has to be the case), it's no surprise that Ion continues to lead his team into every more deluded facets of non-reality in these design decisions. The closest he comes to acknowledging the severe impact the raiding structure shift had on the Mythic community by merely saying, "others have struggled along the way" is abysmally unsupportive. Yeah, they sure "struggled" alright; struggled into fucking oblivion while their roster remnants were frantically sucked up by anyone left when the dust settled to hopefully stay cohesive.

It gets monumentally worse as in his next breath, Ion states, "I don't know that I would actually agree with the premise that there's a truly massive decline in raiding guilds." This one is the icing on the fucking cake to be sure. YOU ARE BLIZZARD, AND THUS YOU HAVE ACCESS TO ALL THE INFORMATION AND NUMBERS YOU NEED! If there truly weren't a massive decline in raiding guilds as he falsely claims, he would absolutely just state as such... "Actually, we've seen an increase in raiding guilds" or "In fact the number of Mythic guilds hasn't been negatively affected based on our internal stats." Anything at all backed by the data they have to support his claim, rather than this personally opinionated bullshit of not actually agreeing with the premise.

And of course both Ion and Lore go on to bring up ridiculous examples of well known guilds disbanding in the past, as if that has any correlation whatsoever on the larger population as a whole and what the reality is that everyone has been facing since WoD launched. Very few people are stupid enough to think that a single instance of a high-end guild disbanding due to their leadership quitting is therefore a sign of an epidemic issue throughout the community; instead the issue that was trying to be addressed is the sheer volume of guild issues (stemming from the fixed Mythic raid size shift as Ion properly assumed at the outset).

It's just aggravating; if his statement was true, he'd have access to the information to back it up. Without that backing data or statement saying his opinion is factually accurate, we can therefore only assume that the community is correct and that Ion is just trying to put a good face on this pile of crap that he came up with.

Moving on, the final section where he addresses the core question again brings up some more issues:

Originally Posted by Ion

Getting back to the core question, I do feel like changing raiding paradigm was a good idea. It's one of the things that, I think, we're overall satisfied with. I think there's nothing but wins all around, from the flexible structure. 10 to 30 player scaling for Normal and Heroic, having separate lockouts, having then cross-realmable from the start. We've seen tons more participation in those raid sizes.

Firstly, he's sticking to his guns that he thinks this change was a good idea; I suppose if you want to be good at PR, you need to stay aboard the ship until she's fully submerged.

The first real kicker though is the third sentence: "I think there's nothing but wins all around, from the flexible structure." I feel like the second independent clause here would've been said with his head down and his hand in front of his mouth in a wispy little voice if he'd been able to get away with it. Clearly the implication of, "Yeah, it was nothing but wins" doesn't provide a very good lead in when there's a pause and you sheepishly add, "welllll.... for flexible raids anyway..."

Similar to the distraction previously when trying to talk about Death and Taxes as a single example when it ignores the larger issue being addressed, here he tries to cover the shit smell by talking about how solid the FLEXIBLE RAIDS are. WELL NO SHIT! Flexible raiding was solid last expansion too, and absolutely, the small improvements that were made to it this expansion have only helped -- no one would argue with that, but it doesn't address the core issue that he's fully aware of since he acknowledged it himself at the beginning of his response: That this has negatively impacted Mythic raiding dramatically.

The final nail for this particular paragraph is the last sentence where Ion states, "We've seen tons more participation in those raid sizes." Well nooooo shit. Perhaps, and this is just a crazy idea here, that increased participation in FLEXIBLE Normal/Heroic raiding might be in part because some 40% of the previous Mythic raiding population had to find an entirely new home to continue Mythic raiding, and thus it's certain many of those people were unable or chose not to do so, moving down to Normal/Heroics instead? And of course how about the numerous 10-man Mythic guilds that were unable to sustain a roster enough to continue with Mythics, that were therefore forced to downgrade to Normal/Heroic if they wanted to continue raiding at all? It's just a hunch, but I'd wager that might have something to do with these increased numbers in non-Mythic raids.

And of course, this inherently implies that Mythic raiding popularity has dropped (as we know reasonably well from community data); undoubtedly quite significantly, though time will tell just how significantly when we get later into the expansion. As Ion finally addresses Mythic difficulty itself, he continues to make false statements with no backing data or proof:

Originally Posted by Ion

I think on the other end of the spectrum, for the small percentage of players ultimately that do engage in Mythic raid content, they have gotten a better experience out of the fixed 20-player size. We're able to design encounters that are tuned for a specific raid size, rather than constantly struggling and often failing to balance 10 and 25 and getting them equal. And we're able to explore some different raid mechanics that we otherwise couldn't have.

How exactly have we "gotten a better experience"? They continue to make claims like this about being able to design encounters that wouldn't otherwise be possible or using mechanics that wouldn't otherwise be possible, but we've thus far only seen one example (and to argue that Priest MCing is a mind-blowing mechanic that couldn't be figured out in a 10-man setting is ridiculous, but we've discussed that at length before so I won't go down that road).

He closes out talking about the fixed raid size forcing all the world-first-type guilds into one size to ensure competition for those top slots, and this is really one of the only accurate and true statements he makes in this entire response: A single raid size absolutely allows Paragon or whomever to compare themselves accurately to others in these races. But if you're going to belittle the Mythic community as a whole so much as to implement this 20-man only size in the first place, then further exacerbate the issue when asked about it by referencing what a "small percentage of players" Mythic raiders entail, it seems more than a little unfair to then fall back onto a final argument for your side by saying the system is better for even a much smaller percentage of that already small percentage of Mythic raiders so they can wave their epeens properly.

Honestly, how many guilds are really in contention for these high-end, top-world ranks these days? Even during MoP with 10- and 25-man, maybe 25 guilds? 50 at most? Even if we consider the top 100 guilds, we're still talking less than 2% of the "small percentage of players" that do Mythics in the first place, which we already know is in fact a small percent compared to those that do Heroics, let alone Normals. I absolutely don't mind helping these world-first capable guilds with finding better ways to compete and compare themselves, but it's absurd for a developer to use that fraction of a fraction of a fraction as a good reason for making awful design decisions that negatively impact the VAST MAJORITY OF ALL OTHER MYTHIC RAID GROUPS and yet have ZERO NEGATIVE IMPACT on those upper-echelon groups.

Directly thereafter, the next question asks about whether Mythic has a place (is justified) due to the extra development resources required (the ol' "you could spend that time making another 5-man!"):

Originally Posted by @ryanglover

Is mythic (precise tuning, xtra gear art, mounts, bonus fights) justified when such a small % of players even attempt it?

I won't transcribe the entire answer, but there's one very critical line that is extremely relevant to this current discussion (as well as for past 10- vs. 25-man debates as well):

Originally Posted by Ion

I would actually say that Mythic -- and the creation and existence and maintenance of Mythic -- also consumes a small percent of the resources that go into making the game great. The reality is, I would say it's a single-digit percentage if I had to quantify it. [...] If we just decided to cut Mythic difficulty, it would probably reduce the amount of time that goes into making raid zones by 5%, maybe 10% at the very highest.

Color me shocked (/sarcasm).

What this little tidbit provides is solid evidence that any arguments of "saving development time" or any such bullshit nonsense with regards to why Blizzard has made the decisions to destroy so much of Mythic by going with a fixed-size raid are completely out the window.

To elaborate, first we now know that Normal/Heroic are considered successful in their current, flexible incarnations, so those are here to stay. Thus, we also now know that 90-95% of all development time for the raids effectively goes into creating Normal/Heroic (that is, all the standard elements that would exist anyway).

So even in the worst case scenario, the entirety of Mythic design requires 10% of the development time for an encounter or zone, and that's for everything that going from Heroic to Mythic entails (new mechanics, new phases, whatever). So the question then becomes: How much additional development could possibly be required on top of that 10% extra for Mythic to tune the fight for a second raid size of 10-man?

It cannot possibly be a full 10% extra since the majority of the alterations are just numeric differences, but EVEN IF we assume it takes half again as much additional Mythic development time to add another raid size of 10-man, we're only talking an extra 5%. Thus, purely from a development standpoint, if Blizzard wanted to add Mythic 10-mans to a raid size, in the worst case it requires an extra ~5% of development time.

If there was ever any doubt that their decisions in this regard are short-sighted and fail to serve the community as a whole, this should seal it.

Ugh, just suck it up and go to Flexible Mythic raids already. The top 25 guilds will cry foul but will exploit the system in anyway they can regardless (just like they fucking do now), but more importantly the other 99.96% of the raiding community will be all the better for it.